My cable company always had me believe that I was getting a great deal if I had their "triple play" for $99/month. That was before their promotional period ended and my monthly cable bill jumped to over $160. The "triple play" was suddenly gone and the three services (Phone, Cable TV and Internet) were now billed as separate services.
Enter Google Voice. Google's interpretation of what a phone service should be like with free local numbers for life (even when you are not local), call screening, mobile apps and more. I personally like GV (as it is commonly known) for its cheap international calling and voice mail transcriptions. I have been using GV for over 3 years to make international calls using my BlackBerry when the above sticker shock forced me to look for ways to ditch my landline.
My key criteria were to keep my existing phone number and keep the costs low. That was when I chanced upon a little known device called Obi110 from ObiHai Technology, Inc. Obi110 acts as a bridge between your cordless or corded phone and your internet connection. Amazon sells the device for about $50 and it is very easy to set up. View the below video to see how easy it is to configure Google Voice on Obi110.
And here's what I got
- a working landline without a monthly phone bill
- get a dialtone by just picking up the handset like your good old phone/cable company phone
- an actual US phone number with an area code of your liking (Beverley Hills, anyone?)
- Obi110 even lets you add additional phone lines on the same device so you can connect to multiple VoIP providers to the same phone.
As of now, Google Voice calls within US & Cananda are free. So, give it a spin. IMO, the one time cost of $50 for Obi110 is well worth its weight in cable/phone company monthly bills!
So, now with the "phone bill" disappearing, it was time to eliminate Cable TV. More about that in my next post.
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